


To Save My Soul

by airam06



Category: Supernatural
Genre: mild violence, some blood/gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 10:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3407012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airam06/pseuds/airam06
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkness from the Mark of Cain is always threatening to take Dean over. Finally, when he and Cas are alone, he snaps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Save My Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when two Supernatural fans and fic writers meet on Shamchat. What started as a fun roleplay between Been_Winchestered (demon!Dean) and myself (injured!Cas) quickly turned into plot.

Castiel glanced up from the kitchen floor, his faded grace too weak to heal the gashes Dean had just inflicted on him with a steak knife. Dean had been feeling off for most of the day, and fine an instant before, but the moment he saw Cas washing the knife in the sink, his entire demeanor had changed. He leered over Cas, knife thrown carelessly into the sink, and stared down with black eyes.

“Heya, Cas,” he said in a mock friendly tone.

“Dean, please…this isn’t you,” Cas pleaded as he winced. “You’re stronger than this!”

“Oh, I _am_ stronger,” Dean snarled. “Much stronger than you know.”

Cas reached a hand weakly out to Dean.

“Please,” he said quietly, head shaking from side to side as if to deny what was in front of him.

Dean leaned down and took Cas’ jaw in his calloused hands, and the moment of gentleness hurt Cas far more than the knife had.

“You miss me, Castiel?” Dean asked him, and Cas met his black eyed stare with his own.

“More than you know,” he whispered.

Dean leaned in as though he were about to brush their lips together. Cas’ breath caught in his throat, and he let his eyes fall partially closed in anticipation. Within a millimeter of touching, Dean laughed cruelly and dropped his hands away.

Cas clenched his eyes shut before glaring at Dean.

“Don’t do that,” he growled. “Hit me all you want, but don’t you dare do that to me.”

Dean hummed out a laugh.

“Aw, that’s sweet. You miss kissing me, Cas?”

“I miss all of you!” Cas said loudly, wiping his bloodied hands on his jeans. “If you won’t fight for yourself, I will. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Dean’s face turned sour and he stood quickly.

“Do it then!” he yelled, and kicked Cas hard in the ribs, earning a strangled cry. “Get up and _save_ me, Castiel!”

Cas wobbled to his feet.

“I’m not going to hit you back,” he said tiredly, holding his aching and gashed sides. “I don’t have to do that. Look at you. Look at what you’ve become.”

Dean grinned widely.

“I know what I am. What are you?”

“I’m the one who has seen you throw yourself into harm’s way for years. I’ve watched you with this mark, how you’re getting darker and more dangerous,” he advanced on Dean slowly and painfully. “And even after it all, I’m the one who loves you.”

Dean hesitated for a moment, his muscles relaxing a minute amount, before steadying his black gaze again.

“Love me or don’t love me,” he shrugged and clenched his fists. “But I’m still going to tear you apart.”

A terrified, sad look crossed over Cas’ face, and he dropped his hands, opening his arms up wide to bare himself.

“Then do it,” he said simply. “If you don’t feel anything for me, and can truly hurt me, then I’m not going to stop you.”

“That’s no fun,” Dean sneered.

He shoved Cas until the other man’s body was pressed painfully into the wall, and breathed heavily against his neck, the hot air causing involuntary goosebumps to break out over Cas’ skin. Cas tensed up, but tried to keep his breathing calm.

“I can’t hurt you,” Cas practically begged. “Not when I’ve seen you hurt yourself for far too long."

Dean nuzzled into Cas’ neck, and Cas tried to not give in to the soft touch, this imitation of tenderness and affection. He wanted to pretend it was real.

“I don’t love you,” Dean breathed, and Cas’ heart dropped to his stomach.

“And demons _never_ lie, do they, Dean?” Cas spat back.

Dean laughed again, and held Cas against the wall with one hand. With the other, he brushed under his chin and lifted his head to gaze into his eyes. Then he gave a snarl and slammed the angel’s head back into the wall. Cas groaned in pain, but clasped his hands around Dean’s wrists, refusing to back down.

“Is your heart breaking yet?” Dean raised an eyebrow, his lips coming ever closer to Cas’ own, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from them.

“A long time ago,” Cas said, and he tried again to raise his head to close the infinitesimal distance between them.

Dean let him move closer, allowed their lips to meet, and Cas felt himself lighten. Dean even seemed to melt into the feeling, and Cas loosened his grip on Dean’s heated wrists. Dean’s black eyes widened, and he bit down hard on Cas’ bottom lip, then shoved him onto the hard linoleum floor.

Cas angrily wiped the blood off his lip, but when he spoke, it was clear and level.

“I think you’re confused,” he said, and Dean narrowed his eyes. “What do you want from me, Dean? Think about it. What do you want?”

Dean’s entire body shook with the force of the demon he had become. He reached to his side and drew out the First Blade, still bloodied from its last victim.

“You know, Cain said this would hurt somethin’ awful,” he glared down at Cas. “But I don’t feel a thing.”

Cas stared at the blade in Dean’s hands. 

“He killed Collette. You don’t have to be like him,” he said, making no attempt to stand. “I love you, and I can save you.”

“Pathetic,” Dean growled, and he kneeled on the floor, pinning Cas down with his knee and holding the blade to his throat.

“Dean,” Cas stared at him, nothing but love in his eyes. “I won’t kill you, and I won’t fight back. Someday, if you stay like this, you’ll go back to Hell, and if I’m dead in Heaven…well, I’ll tear Heaven and Hell apart to pull you back out of the pit again. Don’t make me have to do that.”

Dean pressed the blade in until a bead of blood pearled on Cas’ skin.

“I promise,” Cas said, voice steady. “No matter what you do to me, I’m never leaving you again.”

Dean’s eyes flickered briefly, flashing wildly between black and green.

“Dean?” Cas asked, and when he made no attempt to speak, Cas seized the blade and threw it across the room with a clatter. “Dean!”

He wrenched himself away from Cas and stumbled back.

“What is it?” Cas asked, standing on weak legs.

Dean’s eyes blinked back to green and stayed, and he began to shake fervently.

“Oh, God,” he repeated under his breath. “Oh, _God_.”

“It’s okay,” Cas said, approaching him slowly. “Everything will be okay, but you have to talk to me.”

Dean stared at him fearfully.

“Why haven’t you put me down already? Cas, I almost killed you this time. If it happens again…”

“It won’t!” Cas said in a placating tone. “You won’t let it, I know you.”

“You idiot,” Dean said weakly. “You’re going to get yourself and my brother killed.”

“I’d never let anything happen to Sam,” Cas said.

“You’ll be dead,” Dean said, still trembling. “He’ll have no one to stand between him and me, and I’ll be thirsting for his blood. Oh, God.”

“Dean, why do you think I sent Sam to the store?” Cas asked. “I could see this in your eyes all day, and I’d rather it be me than him. We’ll find a cure.”

“We won’t,” Dean shook his head.

Cas reached out his hand and carefully took Dean’s, running his thumb over his palm.

“What do you want to do? I can’t lose you.”

Dean pulled his hand away with a jerk.

“Anyone, _anything_ , else and you’d put them down. You’d call it mercy.”

A pained look crossed Cas’ face.

“I’m not in love with anyone else!” he said harshly. “And you’re stronger than this!”

“I’m not,” Dean said blankly. “I’ve proved that.”

Cas realized what Dean expected of him with a sudden clarity.

“If I do anything to you, Sam will kill me too, you know that. I couldn’t live with myself either. Please, Dean…”

Dean scoffed.

“Sam, kill you? Are you kidding me?”

“You’re his brother,” Cas said pointedly. “There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. You have Sam and I both. You’re not alone in this.”

“I will be,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re willing to damn me to this.”

Dean’s shoulders slumped in defeat and he crossed the room to pick up the discarded blade. His face melded into the familiar scorn he wore as a demon, and though his eyes remained green, a cold fury passed over them.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked, afraid to move any closer.

“If I kill myself, I come back as a demon. A regular, normal demon, right? At least then maybe I won’t feel the guilt when I kill you and Sammy.”

"We don't know that!" Cas said harshly. "We don't know _what_ you'll come back as, or if you even come back at all!"

"It doesn't matter!"

“Dammit, Dean, _no_!” Cas yelled.

Dean poised the blade at his chest.

“What else am I supposed to do?” he roared out.

“Let me love you!” Cas’ entire body clenched in fear and anger.

Dean’s hand began to shake on the blade.

“If you love me then save me. Please, Cas. Help.”

“Tell me what to do, then,” Cas pleaded, stepping toward him like he was a wild animal. “I gave up everything for you. I can’t throw you away like you mean nothing.”

Dean dropped the blade with a clatter and moved toward Cas, coming to rest his head on his shoulder and shivering.

“Help,” he managed to say, his voice weak and cracking.

Cas lifted his chin and slowly placed a chaste, soft kiss on his warm lips.

“How?” he asked.

Dean took one of Cas’ hands in his own and kissed it gently, then placed two of his fingers against his own hot forehead, like Cas had done so often. 

“I don’t know if I can cure it, Dean. We’ve never tried. It’s likely that it’s extremely painful. Or I could do too much…”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Dean pleaded. “I trust you.”

“I-if you’re sure,” Cas nodded, and Dean’s face shone with the first hope Cas had seen in a long time.

He pressed his fingers into Dean’s forehead with more deliberate force, feeling the sweaty skin slip underneath. Cas’ eyes began to glow an ethereal blue, and heat poured from his fingers into Dean’s skin. Dean clenched his eyes in pain, his hands wrapped tightly in Cas’ clothing.

Dean groaned in pain and dropped to his knees.

“Almost there, Dean,” Cas growled out in concentration. 

He squinted his own eyes in concentration and passed one final wave of angelic power into Dean’s body and down to the mark, which gave a violent red pulse, then burst into a vibrant blue before fading completely.

Cas dropped his hand away in shock.

“Did it work?” he asked, but Dean gave no answer; instead he slumped over, unconscious. “Dean!”

Cas slapped Dean’s cheeks roughly.

“Wake up! Dammit, Dean, open your eyes. Let me see those beautiful eyes…”

Dean opened his eyes, now completely engulfed by blackness.

“Guess it was a bit much,” he said with a grin. “But the mark is gone, so…what’s that look for?”

“You’re…you’re a demon,” Cas said shortly.

“Oh,” Dean said, eyes flickering back to green. “It feels like it. Shit.”

“No, Dean, this is good!” Cas exclaimed, and Dean looked at him, confused. “We can cure demons. You’re going to be fine.”

"It's easy to control this," Dean admitted. "I guess after being a knight of hell, being a plain ol' demon is easy."

"We can handle that. A few shots and you'll be human."

“Great,” Dean grumbled good naturedly. “Now we got to do that blood thing again? I hate shots, man. Can’t I just stay like this? I promise I won’t go on a bender or nothin’.”

Dean rubbed a hand over his relieved face, and Cas laughed. He grabbed Dean’s face between his hands and kissed him, causing Dean to let out a surprised sound.

“We’ll fix you,” Cas said happily, resting their foreheads together. “I’m so proud of you.”

Dean hugged him tightly.

“I love you,” he said into Cas’ neck. “All that shit it made me say…that wasn’t true.”

“I know,” Cas reassured him, still holding him close. “I love you too. Always have, and always will.”

Dean nuzzled his head against Cas’ neck and the two stood pressed against one another in the dim kitchen. Dean leaned back to kiss Cas gently, and the sound of the bunker door caught their attention.

“I can hear Sam. Let’s go get you back to yourself again,” Cas said, and Dean looked momentarily terrified. “I swear I’ll be there for every second.”

Dean nodded and backed away to entwine his fingers with Cas’. They took their first step together, an angel and a demon both halfway to being human, and exactly where they needed to be.


End file.
